


The Undesirable

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cats, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26991685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Meg and Castiel are ambushed by a black cat.
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	The Undesirable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoonDrenchedShores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonDrenchedShores/gifts).



> Written in honor of my friend Abi's birthday. Happy birthday!

Meg threw her blade in a swing motion. It spun in the air and sunk straight into the other demon’s forehead. He let out a loud dying gasped as he collapsed on the floor, his body flashing orange as it died for good. She sighed with content and turned around.

Castiel limped towards her, a hand on the side of his torso that was leaking both blood and silver, glowing grace. His trench coat and faced were all smeared with blood, but Meg couldn’t make fun of him for it. She was pretty sure there chunks of meat in her hair from the guy she had made explode with a spell-bomb.

“Well, that was fun,” she said instead as Castiel came to lean on her chair.

“I wasn’t expected her to have a host of demons guarding this place,” Castiel commented.

“You heard Rowena,” Meg pointed out. “Powerful borrower and whatnot.”

Castiel looked at the steps inside of the house.

“It probably has wards against demons. It will be better that you stay here while I go look for the grimoire.”

“How do you know it’s not going to have wards against angels?”

Castiel moved his hand away. The wound on his side was no longer bleeding, but they were going to have to repair all the slashes and tears in his trench coat later. After they washed it to get rid of the blood.

“If she did, they might have weakened now she’s dead,” he explained. “You need to get rid of all of… them,” he said, waving his hand at the half-dozen or so bodies spread across the yard, some with their eyes burned out, some with their throats cut or their chests stabbed.

“Really? You’re putting me on cleaning duty?” Meg complained.

“You heard Sam and Dean. We have to clean up after ourselves so we don’t leave a trail behind us.”

Meg knew he was right, but she still crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. Castiel smiled at her and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.

“I’ll be right back out and I’ll help you.”

“Fine. But if you get into an interesting trap or something, you need to call me.”

“I will, of course,” Castiel promised.

He strutted inside and Meg turned her chair around. This was her least favorite part of being a good guy now (well, there were a lot of parts she frequently complained over): the clean-up, the fixing things. It was so much easier to break them and destroying them, and she was really good at that.

But, she guessed as she raised her fist, it was worth it if the angel just took her home afterwards and ravaged her.

The closest corpse to her right caught fire and the acrid smell of burnt meat invaded the air. It would leave behind a blackened patch of dirt over the grass. Not the cleanest way to get rid of them, but hey, she couldn’t just turn people into ashes or pillars of salt with a though like _others_ could.

She turned to another body…

There was rustling behind her. Meg leaned down and grabbed the blade sticking out from the demon’s forehead and held it up, her pulse racing and the adrenaline from the fight returning instantly. But there was no one coming towards in the dark, no one she could see anyway. Maybe it was just the wind and she was still on guard from the fight.

She set the second body on fire and turned towards the third…

She saw the shadow moving this time, out of the corner of her eye. She turned as quickly as her wheels allowed it.

“Stay right there!” she shouted.

The shadow stopped, one paw raised in the air. His eyes glistened with the reflection of the fire, his triangular ears and long, thin tail pointing up at the sky.

A black cat. A rather small one, too.

“Shoo,” Meg said to him. “This is no place for pets.”

The cat stared at her, like if he was trying to determine if she was a threat or not. Meg decided to ignore it as she set fire to another two bodies, rolling down the yard to make sure she got to all of them. Was Cas taking too long inside the house? Should she try to teleport inside (because the insensitive witch that lived there didn’t have a ramp on her porch) and look for him…?

A soft meow interrupted her thoughts. She looked at her side to see that the cat had followed her across the yard. That was… unusual to say the least. Normally, animals could tell there was something wrong with her, that she wasn’t quite human, and stayed away from her. This cat, however, apparently had no survival instincts.

“Go away!” she told him, waving her hand at him. “Shoo!”

The cat did the exact opposite of what she’d told him: instead of running away, he apparently interpreted her gestures and voice as an invitation, because he jumped on her lap and kept staring at her. The flames danced in his big blue eyes as he meowed at her.

“No!” Meg said, grabbing him by the skin of his neck and pulling him up. “You need to go away!”

“Meg?” Castiel’s rough voice came from behind her. “Who are you talking to?”

Meg raised the cat for Castiel to see.

“It’s probably a feral from the neighborhood that doesn’t know what’s good for it,” she commented, putting the cat back on the ground. She half expected him to bolt and get away from them, but it didn’t. Instead, it sat back down, staring up at the both of them, purring softly.

“It is displaying a strange behavior for a cat,” Castiel pointed out, tilting his head at it.

“Do you think it’s some sort of familiar, shapeshifter thing?” Meg asked.

Castiel passed her the grimoire he had found after all crouched in front of the cat. The animal ran back a little, but came back almost immediately, studying Castiel with the same intensity Castiel studied him.

“I’m not getting anything strange out of him. No traces of magic or smells. It’s seems to be… just a cat.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Meg snapped her fingers and the corpse next to the cat caught fire. The animal startled and ran away, hissing. “Let’s get the grimoire to the Winchesters and then go rest for the weekend.”

Castiel nodded in agreement. Meg turned her chair and headed towards the garden’s open gate, ready to teleport as soon as they were out of the area of influence of the house’s wards. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be a good idea if they set it on fire as well? She looked over her shoulder to ask Castiel precisely that and found him standing still several steps behind her, looking down at his feet.

“What’s the problem, Clarence?” she asked, before following his gaze and learning exactly why he was paralyzed.

The cat had returned as quickly as he had ran, and now was rubbing itself against Castiel’s legs, purring softly as it did.

“Oh, come on!” Meg complained. “Just go away already!”

Castiel tried to take another step, but the cat kept getting between his feet, meowing and purring louder than a lawnmower now. So the angel leaned down and picked him up, because of course he did.

“He seems to be very young,” he commented. “And used to… people.”

The cat settled in his arms, now content.

“So?” Meg asked.

“Maybe it’s lost,” he commented. “Perhaps we should ask around the neighborhood if someone misses it?”

“Really?” Meg crooked an eyebrow. “You want us to go knocking on doors, covered in guts and blood, asking if this is little Lucy’s pet? After we just burned a bunch of corpses so we would be inconspicuous? Am I listening to this correctly?”

Castiel gave her that little frown he did when he knew she was right but wasn’t quite ready to admit it. The cat wriggled in his arms and pawed at his shoulder, distracting him.

“Alright… okay,” Castiel said, a little disconcerted as the animal climbed over him and went around his neck. “Then… we go home, get changed and then we come back in the morning to look for the owners.”

“Cas, it’s a cat!” Meg said. “Put it down. It’ll know how to come back home.”

Castiel grabbed the cat and held him away from himself. For a moment, Meg thought that he was going to do as he was told, but then the cat raised his face at him and meowed softly.

And then Castiel raised his eyes at her, looking sad and concerned, and Meg knew there would be no point in arguing with him.

* * *

They had to close all the windows when they arrived to their safe house, because Castiel was sure if they left them open the cat would escape while they were on the bathroom.

Then he changed his mind and said that instead of taking a bath together like they always did, they should bathe separately.

“Are you for real?”

“I don’t want to leave him alone,” Castiel explained.

The cat didn’t seem to particularly care if they were going to leave him alone or not. He walked around the living room, inspecting everything that called his attention, his ears still up and his eyes wide open like being inside was entirely new to him. he pawed at the carpet and swished his tail around.

“Fine!” Meg said, irritated. “But I’m going to take an hour to soak in the tub.”

Castiel barely paid attention to her words. He was too busy watching the cat, who was now, his initial shyness overcome, decided that running around on the carpet was the best game in the entire world.

She kept to her word and she half-expected for Castiel to come knocking on the door at minute fifteen, but after forty-five seconds and the water getting cold, he still hadn’t. So she had no option but to get out, get dry and dressed and teleport downstairs, where she found Castiel still on the couch, with the cat now curled up against his leg. He wasn’t petting him or anything, just… watching it sleep like it was a baby or something.

“Tub’s ready if you want to get clean,” she said.

“What?” Castiel blinked at her, almost like he hadn’t realized that any time had passed. “Oh. Yes. I will go do that now. Will you look after him?”

Meg wanted to laugh in his face, but as usual, he was being entirely earnest, so there was no point in discussing with him that it was just a cat and it didn’t need anyone taking care of it.

“Sure. You go ahead. Toss your clothes out so I can get started with the laundry.”

Castiel did so as instructed so Meg wheeled herself to the laundry room. She was so busy throwing everything into the machine that she didn’t realize she had company until the cat meowed at her, startling her.

“Come on!” Meg told him. “Are you just gonna follow us around everywhere? You’re a cat! You’re supposed to be fierce and independent, why are you being such a baby?”

The cat didn’t answer to her, of course. Instead, he plopped down in front of the washing machine and stayed there, apparently mesmerized by the whirlwind of colors in front of him.

It was kind of…

No, no, it wasn’t cute. It was just a damn animal being fascinated by things dumb animals found fascinating.

Meg took out Cas cellphone and texted a bunch of stupid images to Sam and Dean from it, because she knew it irritated them to no end and she needed a reason not to keep looking at the cat. Even though, now and then, she couldn’t help but to glance at it.

After a while, the fascination wore off, so the cat decided to jump on top of the machine. It immediately got scared, because obviously the machine shook and rumbled, so it jumped back down and ran to hide underneath the stairs.

“Dumb cat,” Meg mumbled to herself.

She grabbed the laundry from the washing machine and then toss it on the dryer. She hang back on her chair, still playing on Castiel’s phone. The cat didn’t come out of his hiding spot and, in fact, it might have left to go lie somewhere else, which was completely fine by her. She didn’t understand Cas’ sudden attachment to it, but it was best if she didn’t feed into it.

The dryer announced it was done with a beep, so she put the phone away and opened it…

The cat jumped past her and straight inside it.

“No, no, get out of there!” she said, as the cat kneaded on the still warm and freshly clean clothes. “You’re going to leave hair everywhere!”

The cat paid no attention as it circled around and then settled into them, tucking his paws underneath his body. He purred, content, and even had the audacity to lower his head and close his eyes as if he intended to nap there.

Meg stared at it in disbelief.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

The cat simply stayed there, its black little body forming a perfect furry circle. Meg cursed under her breath and grabbed him by the neck, intending on taking him back to the living room again, but apparently she did something wrong, because the cat was suddenly awake and squirming again.

“Calm down, you little…!” Meg started, and yelped. The cat had sank his claws on her wrist, making her drop him, and run away before she could see where he had gone. “Oh, that’s it!” she said, turning her chair around, her eyes going black as she analyzed the room with her demon sight. “I’m going to give you to a witch that will kill you for a ritual. Or better yet, I’m going to skin you and throw you in a pot and eat you with soup…”

She didn’t have to look very long. The cat, because it was massively stupid, was back inside the dryer, this time grooming himself calmly. When he saw Meg, he arched his back and hissed at her.

And despite herself, despite knowing she should be mad at him, she should not find this stupid animal cute in any way shape or form… a little smirk appeared on Meg’s lips.

* * *

The following day, after they dropped the grimoire with Jack, they went back to the witch’s neighborhood and drove around for hours, knocking on doors and holding the cat up. Meg hoped that someone would recognize him and take them off their hands, because with every minute that went by, the animal became more and more restless.

“What’s happening with him?” Castiel asked, concerned, as the cat twisted and turn on Meg’s lap and meowed pathetically.

“He’s hungry, Cas,” she explained to him. “He needs to eat. He probably hasn’t since last night.”

“Oh. Right,” Castiel mumbled. He thought about it for a moment. “We don’t have any cat appropriate food at home.”

“We’re not taking him back home!” Meg warned him. “We’re not feeding him. If we feed him, we’re never going to get rid of him!”

“Never is a bit of a strong statement,” Castiel said as he started the car again. “Cats only live around ten years. That is, if they’re kept inside and well-fed, in which case they can live anywhere from twelve to sixteen years…”

“When did you become a cat expert?”

“I… might or might not have been reading about it on the Internet,” Castiel admitted. “I am aware with felines as a life form, but I don’t know much about the care of domestic cats…”

“You don’t need to know about the care of domestic cats, because we don’t have a cat!” Meg argued.

The cat in her lap meowed even more, almost a cry at that point. Cas glanced at it out of the corner of his eye and Meg saw the little frown appear in his face again.

“Oh, no. Come on!” she protested. “You’re not going to tell me that you want to keep him!”

“He just seems… like such a helpless creature,” Castiel said, softly. “And there’s something soothing about watching him move around.”

“And we fight demons for a living and you have two best friends who break the world on yearly basis,” Meg reminded him. “We’re not the most qualify people to take care of a pet. We’re not even people!”

Castiel sighed, sadly.

“Yes, of course, you’re right,” he admitted. “We should look for a shelter to leave him at, where he would hopefully be able to find a nice human family.”

“Thank you!” Meg exclaimed, because that was the only reasonable thing Castiel had said since encountering the damn thing.

It was easier said than done, however. The first two shelters turned down because they were “overpopulated” and “only housed dogs”. In between driving to them, the cat decided that hiding inside of Castiel’s trench coat was better than being on Meg’s lap whining for food they didn’t have. Meg didn’t think that was good for Castiel’s shaky decision to give up the cat, but the alternative was dealing with incessant noise, so she took it.

“Sure, we can take him in,” said the volunteer at the third shelter when they showed him the cat. There was no conviction in her voice, however. “I just… I need to warn you, he might be here for a long time.”

“How come? He seems to be a healthy, young cat. He is very affectionate too,” Castiel said. “I’m sure he can find a forever home in no time.”

“Yes, but he is… black,” the volunteer said.

“We can see that. We’re not colorblind,” Meg quipped.

The volunteer shook her head.

“It’s just that black cats have a bad reputation. People are less likely to adopt them. We have two right now that have been here for over a year and no one is interested in taking them in.”

Meg stared at her, disconcerted.

“Are humans really that stupid?”

“Sometimes,” the volunteer said gravely. “Well, we’ll take your little one and see if he’s chipped. If he isn’t and you want to leave him with us, I’ll bring you the forms.”

Castiel sat down in one of the armchairs available for visitors while Meg parked her chair next to him.

“Can you believe that?” she commented. “Humans just… leave their cats. Because they think they’re evil. They’re not evil. They’re just cats!”

“Humans are not the most rational species, Meg,” Castiel said, with a half-hearted shrug. “Regardless, I think this is the right choice.”

“Do you, really?” Meg asked. “Knowing he’s going to languish in a cage, never to be adopted no matter how lovely he is? And maybe they’ll put him down… is this a no kill shelter?”

Before Castiel could answer her question, the volunteer returned.

“Well, our vet is examining him right now, but we can tell for sure he isn’t chipped,” she said, as she walked towards them with some papers and a pen in hand. “Should I help you fill the forms for surrendering?”

Castiel looked at the pen in her hand, then at Meg. And Meg knew she was screwed.

* * *

She had never really understood the term “herding cats” until they opened the doors of the three crates they’d bought and the three black forms bolted around the living room.

“No scratching!” Meg warned them. “Your father brought you a tree for that!”

Jack put down the several bags worth of cat food, litter boxes and toys they had bought at the pet shop.

“I think it’s so cool that you did this!” he commented, as he bought a cat teaser out and tried to lure one of them from under the couch.

“Yeah, well.” Meg crossed her arms over her chest. “I can always still eat them if they ever misbehave.”

“Are you sure this wasn’t a ploy to keep Dean away from your home?” Sam asked, picking the youngest cat, the one that had ambushed them outside of the witch’s house.

“You know, that’s more like an unexpected upside,” Meg said, shrugging.

After all, they were going to stay in that house for the long haul. As Castiel had said, a decade of taking care of those beasts couldn’t be that bad.

They called the small, youngest one _Cas Jr._ , mainly because the kitten had decided Castiel was his father and followed him around the house at all hours, climbing his trouser and nesting inside of his trench coat when Castiel finally deigned to pick him up.

The fat one they called _Queen Cleopatra_ , or Cleo, for short, because she was an absolute diva. She would lounge on their couches or over the counters and expect to be fed and scratched and would whine if she didn’t get enough attention.

The old, feral one with half an ear missing was _Hades_ , because, as Meg pointed out, he looked like hell. He was a bundle of scars and bad temper that was more likely to stay hidden under the couch or the bed, hissing and clawing at anyone who ever dared intrude in his domains. Meg knew she wasn’t supposed to play favorites, but that one was her favorite, even when he started hanging around the other cats.

Sometimes, on their free days when they weren’t playing fetch for the Winchesters, they would lie on the bed, with the three cats at the feet, curled up against one another. Meg wondered how the hell had her life ended up like that.

“Look at them!” she said, peeking from under the duvet to stare at the cats, who were all laying on the floor sharing the single ray of sunshine that came in through the window. “Two hours ago they were screaming for food. They’re the most spoiled cats in the entire world!”

Castiel smiled and turned around on the bed to place an arm around her waist and pulled her in closer to him.

“I’m glad we decided to keep Junior,” he said. “And that you agreed to bring in the others as well.”

“Well, yeah, what was I supposed to do? Leave them there until a witch adopted to use them in some sort of weird ritual?”

Cas brushed her hair aside.

“Did you take them in because you didn’t want the implication of someone not adopting them because they thought they were evil?”

“Don’t overthink it, Cas,” Meg replied. She snuggled closer to him, watching the cats take their morning nap and thinking about doing the same thing. “I just think the little undesirables are kinda nice to look at.”

“That they are,” Cas agreed, leaving a kiss on her neck.


End file.
